


Memento Mori

by Keldae



Category: Star Wars Legends: The Old Republic (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Grieving, Implied Character Death, father-son bonding, kotfe, timeskip fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-11 21:57:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,523
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16861009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Keldae/pseuds/Keldae
Summary: Theron's not the only one mourning for the one Zakuul stole from the galaxy.





	Memento Mori

The last time the Republic had all but shut down for a period of mourning was the week after the Treaty of Coruscant. Then, the Jedi had retreated to lick their wounds after the falling of the Temple; the ragged, exhausted survivors of the Republic Military had fallen back to whatever safe outpost they could find; and Coruscant itself had struggled to douse the flames from the Sith occupation.

This time, Coruscant was relatively intact. But the Jedi had all but completely vanished; the once-proud navy was down to a few ships that had escaped Kuat; and every single starved-looking civilian bore scars, mental wounds that would never heal. Zakuul had harmed every single sentient being in the galaxy… those who hadn’t been killed, anyway. And oh, stars, that list of Republic dead and missing was too long to be counted.

“This war has affected all of us,” spoke the newly-elected Senator from Balmorra, Tai Cordan, on a bulletin sent out to the surviving members of the Republic. “While we…” Stars, it was bad when the strong-willed Senator’s voice wavered with grief. “The Republic will rise again. We have been beaten down, but we have not been broken. Zakuul cannot keep their grip on the galaxy forever.”

Theron snorted derisively to himself, but said nothing, even when Jonas raised a concerned eyebrow at him.

“Tonight, I would ask each of you to take a moment to remember those who fell defending us over this past year. I suspect there isn’t a family in the Republic who isn’t missing a loved one tonight, a loved one who gave their life to protect us.” The holo of Cordan inclined its head, then looked back up. “We will not let their deaths be in vain. We will finish the work they started to free the Republic from Zakuul, and to drive the Empire back. Tonight, we mourn… tomorrow, we regroup.”

The bulletin ended, followed by a seemingly endless scroll of names. The Republic had lost countless people in Zakuul’s seige, every one of whom had been named on that list. Theron knew several of the ones who were dead or MIA; some of those names had belonged to friends of his. But one name made his heart ache every time he saw or heard it. It wasn’t fair that she should have been one of the first to die.

Was it bad that he was mourning the woman he loved more than he was worried about his mother, currently missing in action? Probably. But he didn’t care.

Theron abruptly turned and stalked out of the SIS board room, ignoring Jonas calling after him.

* * *

The gardens outside the Senate Tower were now lined with countless small, white markers. There were no actual tombs here – half of the people memorialized here hadn’t had their bodies recovered after their deaths. But for some grieving survivors, the stone markers and tiny holoimages of their loved ones’ faces was enough to help them get through the pain.

Theron felt as though his feet had become duracrete as he walked through the gardens, seeking the specific area that had been set aside to mourn the fallen members of the Jedi Order. Seeing Xaja Taerich’s stand-in tombstone had a high chance of breaking him, or so he feared. But staying away hurt too. Hells, just breathing and remembering that he was never going to have that tiny redhead waking up beside him again made him want to crumple up in pain. And it was a pain that no painkillers in the galaxy could touch. There wasn’t enough whiskey to drown out the sound of Theron’s heart shattering more and more each day.

He dully noted, as he walked by, that many of the memorials had signs of visitors already. Flowers, pictures on flimsi, a necklace on one – he felt his throat get tight and hurried on when he saw a child’s doll, carefully propped up against a stone. At least Xaja’s grave wouldn’t be bare, not when Theron had something to place where she had been symbolically laid to rest.

He approached the area where he suspected her name was – then blinked in surprise. He wasn’t the only person to be mourning Xaja’s death. Her tombstone already had several flimsi holophotos leaning against it and a couple of different flowers in blue and red laid at its base, one having been just added by Agent Galen. The crippled cyborg spy slowly stood up and bowed his head for a moment, then walked away, probably seeking another grave to mourn at.

Before Theron could reach Xaja’s grave marker, two more people arrived. He watched as Elara Dorne knelt to prop a piece of flimsi against the stone, Aric Jorgan standing over her with a more-solemn-than-usual expression on his face. As Elara stood up, both soldiers sharply saluted the tombstone – and now Theron could see a tear tracing down Elara’s face. “Rest easy, Master Xaja,” Jorgan finally said as the salutes were relaxed. “We aren’t letting you die in vain.”

Theron watched as Havoc’s CO and XO walked away from the grave, then finally approached. He slowly knelt, his fingers tracing the lines meticulously carved into the stone. Xaja had been so much more than just words carved into cold, unfeeling stone that told her name and age, more than the tiny blue holofigure with the small, polite smile. She had been warmth and fire and laughter and a fierce temper and the sweetest kisses Theron had ever tasted –

_Shit._  He pressed his fist against his mouth to keep his anguished keen silent. But what did it matter now if people knew he had been in an illicit relationship with a now-dead Jedi? What more could the galaxy throw at him?

Trying to distract himself from the agony, he glanced at the other flimsi-printed images. Stars, those hurt too. They were images of Xaja… squished in the middle of a group picture with the rest of her crew, even including Tee-Seven and a grumpy-looking Scourge… flanked by both of her brothers on Rishi, all three siblings grinning… glaring upward as Master Forseti cheerfully rested his elbow on her head… Theron clearly wasn’t the only person feeling her absence. He looked down at the flimsi notes left behind by other mourners, feeling as though he were intruding. But here they were: one note, in Master Forseti’s long handwriting. That was a surprise to see – Theron thought the Barsen’thor had been killed in action. Apparently one of the heroes of the Order had survived by playing dead. Why couldn’t it have been both of them? _I’m sorry I didn’t have your back this time, short stuff. I wish I had been there to help you. We’ll make sure Larel knows all about the hero that “Auntie Za” was. Say hi to Master Orgus for us._ And the one that Elara had just left:  _We should have been there with you. But you can rest easy now. We’ll take care of it for you, one way or another._  A third one bore Korin’s smudged handwriting, crooked as though the smuggler had written the note with the help of a lot of whiskey:  _You know how much this hurts? It feels like losing Mum again. I’ve lost too much family already, I didn’t want to lose my sister. I’ll look after Dad and Sorand – they’re not doing well without you. Shit, I’m not either. This hurts and I miss you, sis. We all miss you._ And still another from Kimble:  _Dammit, Red. Why did it have to be you? This still feels like a bad dream that none of us can wake up from. You would have raised hell if it had been one of us, but we can’t… this hurts._

For once, Theron found himself agreeing with Kimble.  _A bad dream? It’s a nightmare._  The things he would do for the chance to wake up beside Xaja again, to see that warm, happy smile of hers, or to feel her cuddling against his side like she was meant to be there…  _Because she_ was _meant to be there!_

“I wish you hadn’t left,” he whispered to the cold tombstone. “I wish… I wish Marr had never summoned you. I wish you had ignored his call.” He swallowed hard around the lump in his throat. “… I wish I had gone with you.” Hells, she had offered to let him come with her, that final morning when she had left Coruscant. And he had refused, not wanting to risk his shaky standing with the SIS after the Ziost disaster.  _Why didn’t I go with you?_

His grip tightening on the cold stone, he leaned forward and rested his forehead against his hand. If nothing else, it would hide the tears that he wanted to shed. “I miss you,” he brokenly whispered. “I wish… I wish I had told you how I felt sooner, while you were still here to hear it. The Republic’s missing a Jedi war hero, but I… I’m missing you, the girl I fell for.” Images flashed through his mind, the result of a vivid imagination left with too much time to think – the plans he had had to ask Xaja to move in with him when she came home, the desire to be around her every day, even the briefly-entertained images of what she would have looked like, if she had lived long enough to grow old with him. Jedi weren’t supposed to fall for relationships like that – hells, Theron had never planned on it for himself. But Xaja had already made it clear she didn’t think too highly of that tradition. And he would have broken any rule she asked of him.

He finally reached into his pocket and pulled out his own small offering to the tiny shrine growing around Xaja’s tomb. He had taken one of the precious images he had saved in his files, a picture of himself and Xaja flopped together on the same couch in the safehouse on Rishi and laughing at something going on beyond the camera’s range, and printed it onto another piece of flimsi. On the back, he wrote his own memorial note.  _Of all the promises you could have possibly broken, why did it have to be your promise to come home? It shouldn’t have been you. I wish it had been anyone except you. I want you back – I would do anything to be see you again, Xaja._ He swallowed hard, blinked back the blurriness in his vision, then finished his note.  _I wish I had been there with you. It would have hurt less than this does now._ The flimsi was reverently set against the stone, picture-side out so the next mourner would see an image of the Hero of Tython laughing merrily, and Theron let himself crumple into a ball, his jaw clenching as he desperately tried to hold back his grief, lest it overwhelm him entirely.

He wasn’t sure how long he had knelt there at Xaja’s gravestone before he felt a large hand gently rest on his back. “Theron,” a low voice rumbled a few feet over the spy’s hunched shoulders. Jace slowly knelt beside him with the painful-sounding creak of older joints, soothingly rubbing his hand along Theron’s back. The old soldier didn’t say anything for a moment – Theron could almost feel his father analyzing the scene in front of him, identifying whose death was being mourned so deeply by the grief-stricken agent. “She’s at peace, son,” he finally murmured. “She’s not suffering…”

“But I am,” Theron mumbled, and was belatedly surprised that he had spoken anything out loud. Apparently the lack of sleep and decent food was getting to him. Or maybe that was just the grief that he couldn’t escape.

“I know you are.” Jace’s hand moved to wrap around Theron’s arm and tug upwards. “Come on. You look like you haven’t eaten anything that isn’t whiskey in too long.” When Theron didn’t move, Jace sighed – the spy couldn’t tell if that was frustration or pity. “Theron… if she cared for you half as much as you did her, she wouldn’t want you to waste away like this. If she was here, she would probably be telling you to–”

“If she was here, this wouldn’t be happening,” Theron snapped, and felt Jace flinch. The spy winced and looked away from his father’s shadow, his gaze focusing on Xaja’s simply-carved name in the stone. “… Sorry,” he finally mumbled, the fight draining out of him.

“I know, son.” Jace gently tugged upwards again; when Theron risked a glance up, he saw a strained attempt at a smile on his father’s face. “… Come and keep your old man company for a bit?” he quietly asked. Hells, if Theron was mourning for the woman he’d loved, Jace had to be missing countless friends and colleagues, and…

“Why were you in this part of the garden?” he asked with a frown, even as he started to suspect the answer. It was all but confirmed when Jace looked away, for a moment displaying his own anguish for another person lost.

“There’s a memorial for the Jedi still missing,” the old soldier finally murmured. “… Including your mother.” Theron just saw the flash of colour as Jace repocketed his own flimsi image, the picture lingering barely long enough for the spy to recognize Satele’s years-younger face. Jace sighed heavily before gently squeezing Theron’s arm. “Even if she is… if she… she’ll understand if I go later. You’re a bit more important right now.”

Theron started to shake his head. “No, it’s not a–”

“She would disagree.” Jace hesitated for a moment as he looked back at Xaja’s grave. “They both would, Theron.” The hand on Theron’s arm tugged again, and this time the spy finally stood up, if dizzily and almost immediately needing to be caught before he fell back over. “Blast it, son, when was the last time you ate anything?”

Theron frowned when he had to think about that. It was hard when everything he ate had a substantial risk of coming back up…

“That’s what I thought. Come on.” Apparently completely disregarding any observers, Jace wrapped his arm around Theron’s shoulders and started slowly walking away from the gardens, and from Xaja’s grave marker. Theron still tried to look back, as though he could will Xaja back to life if he lingered on her memorial stone long enough, but felt his father firmly tug him forward again. “… I don’t think either of us should be alone right now, son. More than we already are, anyway.” When Theron looked back at Jace, he could see the strain in the lines of his father’s face, the dark lines under his eyes, the unshaven cheeks… the clenched jaw and blinking eyes of someone holding back their own grief. Theron had no idea how his father was still functioning – hells, he wasn’t sure how he was still somewhat functional.

With an exhausted, broken nod, Theron let Jace slowly lead him away from the improvised tombs, father and son both mourning for the women missing from their lives.


End file.
